they turned up great earthy fistfuls,
all through the night until day broke

and they beheld the chasm they’d made.
At the bottom of the pit, that place

from which all roots begin, just
a hard plain bed of rock. Not edible,

not watery, not soft like a woman
or gold like the sun, but a plate of stones

ancient as that time before time
when the rigid Precambrian crust

exhaled fumes for an atmosphere,
pushing up nutrients from its

petrified breast. There was a lesson here
but they were hungry. Their hands

were bleeding. Their groins
wanted attention. So they climbed out

to work on spears and temples,
forgetting that pit and how

for one odd moment,
the dark was almost familiar.

§ § §

Michael Meyerhofer is currently earning his MFA at Southern Illinois University. His work has appeared (or is forthcoming) in Chiron Review, Free Lunch, Nerve Cowboy, Main Street Rag, Snow Monkey, Modern Haiku, American Tanka, Verse Libre, Diagram, The Circle, Snapshots, Famous Reporter, Frogpond, and others.

Reprinted from Ink Pot #5; available now

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